30 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency 



ings of meetings. Without publication, the proceedings do not 

 receive that degree of publicity desirable for public business. It 

 is seldom that reporters cover the meetings, and when they do 

 the newspaper accounts are generally meager and sometimes in 

 error. Even if the average citizen had time, he hesitates to ask 

 the privilege of looking at the written record. It is suggested 

 that all proceedings be published and distributed to the public 

 libraries, press, and to such civic organizations and persons as 

 request copies. Printed copies would also prove a matter of 

 much convenience to the Commissioners themselves. The cost 

 of publishing the West Park proceedings in 1910 was $1,112.54. 

 The suggestion is made to the Lincoln Park Board that they 

 have their minutes typewritten in a bound book in the first 

 instance and dispense with the long-hand copying of a duplicate 

 record, as under the present procedure. 



METHODS OF PASSING ORDINANCES 



The method of passing ordinances has been similar in each 

 Park Board. They are usually prepared by the Board's attorney 

 and presented to the Board in writing; and as neither the sta- 

 tutes nor ordinances provide for more than one reading, they 

 have frequently been passed on first reading at the meeting at 

 which they were presented. Some ordinances originate in com- 

 mittee, others are occasionally referred to a committee for 

 consideration and report, but many are presented, read and passed 

 at the same meeting. This course often prevents the public, as 

 well as commissioners who may be absent, from becoming 

 informed as to proposed action. 



The Lincoln Park Board publishes its ordinances, immediately 

 after passage, for ten days in two Chicago daily papers. No 

 such publication is made by the other boards. The Bureau sug- 

 gests that each Park Board adopt a rule that no ordinance shall 

 be passed at the same meeting at which it is presented, and not 

 until a copy of the proposed ordinance has been published in the 

 official proceedings, together with advice as to the date upon 

 which the ordinance will be called up for second reading and 

 action. 



